


Across the sea of years

by JaqofSpades



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: 60 Moods of Summer, Mood: high-falutin, Mood: probably overambitious, Multi, incest warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 04:05:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7251358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beginning, man made them Gods. In the end, they cast themselves down as demons.   Four souls, cast adrift on the sea of years.</p><p>(A birthday present for Serin/Steph, to fill the 60 Moods prompts Maelstrom, Rage, Kiss, Russian Roulette, Pool Party, Trapped, Fireflies, Beginnings.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across the sea of years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Steph_Schell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph_Schell/gifts).



> For @serinsnart.tumblr.com, aka Steph Schell, a few days past her birthday, who requested Miles and Nora, and soulmates or reincarncation. Bass and Charlie couldn’t resist the urge to come out and play, and then things got TRULY out of hand. Happy birthday Serin/Steph - hope this vaguely approaches what you were looking for. (Sorry about the angst. Miles needed the odd karmic bitchslap.)
> 
> Gorgeous art by romeokijai who is SO good to me.

  

 

MAELSTROM

In the maelstrom, there’s nothing but feeling.  Nothing so simple as love and hate, those temples to emotion that men build.  Here, he swims in the fullness of the tangle, all the threads of fury and gratitude and resentment and lust that swirl together, life after life.

Sometimes he’d be willing to beg for a clean slate, a release from the cycle, but in clearer moments, he knows these are the things that define him.  The crystalline purity of righteous anger, and the creeping advance of resentment.  The tight coil of sexual excitement, and brotherhood, warm at his back.  Family, bonds of blood and shared experience.

Beyond family are his other souls.

Twinned, twice over. Cursed, some would say, to sail the endless sea together.  They were gods, once.  Mortals gave them names and juvenile excesses supplied their natures, divided neatly into the polar opposites humanity liked to demand.

War and Wisdom.  Beauty and Death. Never what they thought we were, he sighs, almost past caring.  Their eternal dance destined to be misunderstood, and the very forces of the universe conspiring to rip them apart.  Maybe it will be different this time.

(It never is.)

*

RAGE

He remembers his first journey across the Styx.  The wind wasn’t half as cold as this, and the black waters were gentle compared to this heaving sea.  The boatman was quiet, and turned towards the shore, but he’d never felt alone.

He’s never been alone, until now.  And the sky is splitting above him and maybe someone is mourning him, shredding her clothes and tearing at her hair, because this feels like grief.  A lover’s fury.  But he has no lover, not in this life, and he’s been so lonely, and so bored.  This sailing west, though.  He may have gone too far. He’d built an empire and destroyed it, just for kicks.  Scraped the remnants together and told them to build him a palace for the seas, one room for his warriors and the other for their women.

He’d chosen the prettiest girl and was buried balls deep within an hour of setting sail.  When her father complained, he made the man lick her juices from his cock before bending him over the rail for the entire crew to fuck.  There’d been few complaints after that.

It’s possible, he supposes, this is the comeuppance fate has been threatening life in, life out.  First, the ship is becalmed for week, and he spends so much of his time fucking that his cock threatens to fall off.  Then the storm blows in, making it impossible to stay below.

He takes to prowling the decks as the giant masts splinter and crack overhead and there’s nothing he can do but rage -  rage at the sky above, rage at the snivelling whelps he calls sons, rage at these puking, wailing scraps of humanity prostrating themselves before the storm. 

He spits his defiance at the clouds, at the sea itself, and dares it to take him.  Climbs onto the bowsprit and howls his challenge to the fates, to the elements, laughing and jeering as he taunts  it to rain harder.  Blow stronger.  Make this a battle worth fighting.

Fuck fate, he howls.  Fuck destiny.  Most of all, fuck them for abandoning him.

Never say life doesn’t have a sense of humour.

He sees her when he raises his face to the lightning splitting the sky.  She’s high in the rigging, face turned into the wind, long black hair whipping around her like the darkness itself.  Joy in every line of her body, younger and more delicious than he can remember, a simple, water-soaked shift doing nothing to hide its splendour.

“Come down here,” he screams, but she can’t hear him, already at one with the storm.  So he climbs.

When she turns her head to look at him, her eyes are blown wide with the ecstasy of it.  “My King,” she greets him.

“Goddess,” he says, cautious.  For if she isn’t truly one of his sisters, she surely deserves to be.  But recognition is already singing in his veins, stealing his breath, swelling in his cock. He presses closer.

Her giggle is decidedly human, and he considers the possibility that she is nothing more than a rash girl maddened by the storm.  He marvels at the feel of a grin on his face, his own acknowledgement that it doesn’t matter.  Girl or goddess, they’ll pay homage to the storm the same way. 

He lashes himself to the rigging behind her to give his hands the freedom of her body.  Sings a paean to her beauty as he teases her nipples to full prominence, and growls of her magnificence as he buries his fingers in her increasingly wet cunt.

“You are the sky and I am the lightning,” he tells her as his cock slides between her thighs.

“You are the sun and I am the moon,” she pants into his ear, hand reaching down to angle him upwards, their prayer to the storm spilling into nonsense as her body welcomes him home.

If he had been able to listen, he probably would have the crash of waves over the rocks, the scrape of sand and pebbles grabbing fast at the hull.  Maybe he did hear, but didn’t care, because his journey had already ended here.

He hands her off the boat first, this woman he has known forever but never met.  She leads him over the beach, and high onto the headland.

“It is yours,” she promises as they gaze out onto endless green.  “The people of Danu are few, and willing to share.”

But the sons of Mil scorn such things, and the battles that come are fierce.  The de Danaan retreat before their iron swords, then seem to disappear.  He is curious as to where this half-magic people could have gone, but there is ruling to be done, and a land to reshape with plough and axe and hoe.

He never sets eyes on the other half of his soul again.

It’s not until the Bean Sidhe screams for him that he discovers the true horror of what he has done.  He rises from his deathbed, and sets off across the neat fields his sons have imposed on the green earth.  Passes through the old groves, gone now.

Stops in front of a set of golden gates that guard an underground hill.

All three of them stand ready to bear witness on the other side.  He stumbles towards them, sobbing in recognition, but has to pull up short, hands clutching at the implacable gate.

“You cannot pass, Miles,” Death explains, blue eyes full of sadness.

“Yeah.  Talk about fucking things up,” Beauty snarls, and turns her back on him, stomping towards a hall full of golden light.

Wisdom says nothing.  Her brown eyes fill with tears, but she’ll not speak to him again.  He’d disregarded her once, dismissed her concerns without thought, and even she cannot overturn his fate.

She’ll wait, and watch, and mourn, as he dies alone.

*

KISS

The endless mist blankets the ancient castle in grey, and his escort prattles about how those bred here barely notice the way the cold makes their bones ache.  In the spring, the fighting will stop to let them tend the fields for a time, to see marriages made and the rash of babes born.

Come autumn, the clans will be ready to pick up their swords again, if their leaders can’t forge a peace first. So now, he braves the mud and the midwinter chill to do as he must.

Monroe has a son, and Matheson a daughter.  Their warriors will accept the match.  The girl won’t go without protest, but she has no choice, when her dowry and bride price alike is peace.

They handclasp on the deal, and The Matheson tries to ignore the callused warmth of his enemy’s hand.  Amusement lurks in shockingly familiar blue eyes, upturned to his own.

“The bishop would insist on the kiss of peace,” The Monroe points out, and he’s right, of course.

He doesn’t remember peace tasting like this, their clasped hands falling apart to pull each other closer, obedient lips opening on a gasp of awe, a curious tongue flicking over his teeth, then licking deep into the cavern of his mouth.  Bodies crushing together, cocks hard, hips moving for relief.

 “My regards to the Lady Monroe,” he says stiffly, afterwards, unable to process the import of it all. This fight – did it not trace back to Monroe stealing his lover?  What business does he have rutting with the man who excuse could he possibly have?

“My lady wife offers the same to you.  She remembers you fondly, my Lord, and would bid you visit.”

The invitation is to be expected on such an occasion, the proposed joining of two great houses.  But the sly flame in the other man’s eyes tells him something else is afoot.  Nora’s scheming, no doubt.

She had never been one to leave things to chance, and had worked her whole life for peace.  Let this be his tribute to her, to the sacrifice she’d made when she’d accepted his rival’s suit. 

“My Charlotte will be keen to meet her new family,” he offers stiffly.  “I shall bring her as soon as her pony can make it through the mud.”

Monroe laughs out loud – perhaps the news of his wild daughter’s exploits has reached even this far South – and guides him to a chair by the fire, sloshing more mead into his cup.

“Young Connor is keen to meet his bride, so you may find yourself fending him off sooner than that.”

The Monroe, he discovers, the man they would rather call Monster, is every bit his equal in learning and enthusiasm for the great books, and they talk deep into the night.

Talk, and pull at each other’s clothes, and wrap their mouths around each other’s cocks with a fervour he’s never known.

Four months later, it’s Monroe he’s searching for as he delivers his daughter to the church.  He barely notices the boy waiting at the end of the aisle, though Charlotte had seemed impressed enough.  He sees them wed, leads her out on the floor for a final dance before she’s ushered out to her wedding bed.

Can’t break away soon enough to find his lover.

Nora guides him through the castle, arm linked with his. His sister, now, after a fashion. He sneaks glances at her profile, still so beautiful, but cannot see her but to think of her husband. What sort of pair must they be? He blurts the question before his nerve breaks: "Have you been happy?"

Her smile is a soft thing, rain on the fields and a dance in the hay at midsummer. "Happy enough, Miles. We have our children, and our books. Happy enough."

"Good," he grunts, and puts his hand on the boss of the door. "Do you ever wonder ..."

Her hand wraps around his and squeezes. "Of course. I loved you, but ... you weren't meant for me, Miles. You were fated for another."

He wants to ask who, but the door is already swinging open under his hand, Nora swishing through the doorway ahead of him, her pained gasp bringing him up short.

They are on the rug in front of the fire, her bridal gown rucked up about her hips and her long blonde hair glowing orange in the ruddy light, eyes closed and face awash with pleasure as she rides him slow. Had they stumbled into the wrong bedchamber, Miles frowns for a moment, until his daughter's lover surges upwards to suckle on her breasts, his riot of messy curls unmistakeable.

His dagger is in his hand even before Nora screams, begging him to remember, to stop. "This is not all we are, Miles! Please!"

But it's too late, his jealous heart no match for a pair faithless lovers and an already fragile peace.

(The war will last another three hundred years.)

*

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

He may as well have been born with a gun in his hand.  Ripped from his mother’s belly as her blood pooled in the street, he screamed for vengeance with his very first breath.  Later, he screams for power and status and cold, hard cash, but the need to rend and gash and tear – that never goes away.

Correction – it goes away for a while.  He meets a girl.  Her walk is liquid honey and her accent dripping with the Spanish south, but he loves her anyway.  Worships her.

Loses her to a man they both love, his jealousy and spite poured into a seduction poor, neglected Athene didn’t care to resist.  Wisdom has been drawn to Death since time began.  Sometimes she resists him.  This time she could not.

War claims them both, hangs their scalps on his belt, and spends the rest of that life wondering where the fuck Beauty was hiding.

Beauty is long gone.  She had seen him, spinning that chamber, holding the gun to her lover’s head.  Felt that first click, and the gush of relief when it proved hollow.  Gasped at the second, begun to clutch at hope.  But Gods rarely bother to follow mortal rules, and War had made sure every other chamber was loaded – bam, bam, bam, bam.  Beauty had stood witness as a spray of brains and blood destroyed their chance of ever being whole in this life. 

Then she ran.

*

POOL PARTY

Beauty lies stretched out on the white lounge, her blonde mane ringleted and her golden body a riot of lush curves.  War and Death stand behind her, and Wisdom bustles over, a shooting script in her hand.

“The meeting is at four,” she advises, chancing a cautious half smile at the starlet’s grim bodyguards.  “If you want this role, they’ll be looking for range.”

“Or I can promise to take off my clothes.”

Huge brown eyes spit anger and sadness. “Or you can promise to take off your clothes.”

Beauty flashes her scornful gaze over the pool full of slavering strangers.  “I can never be naked enough for them, can I?”

War feels murder rising in his heart, and Death moves closer to rub shoulders with him, his presence soothing for all their shared rage. “Time to go inside, Miss Matheson?”

“You don’t think they deserve a little show, Mo?”

“No, Miss.  They don’t deserve a goddamn thing – and certainly not you. No one does.”

Gratitude and love bloom across her face as she leans up to take his hand, flowing to her feet. “Thank you, Mo.  But you’re wrong, you know.”

She presses between them, white bikini a shocking contrast against their black suits, bare skin thrilling to the brush of fabric. “Some people have earned the right to see me however they want.  Happy.  Sad.”  She lifts her face to breathe into his ear, and his entire body stiffens as her tongue flickers inside. “Hungry.”

War bites down on his tongue as Death coughs, and Wisdom’s huge brown eyes get even bigger.  Then Beauty reaches backwards, and traps the other woman’s hand in her own.

“Miss Clayton is going to help me run some lines in preparation for my meeting at four. Give us a few minutes to get changed, and then come on in.  There’s gotta be _some_ way you can help.”

There is.  It involves his massage skills, and the delicate arch of her gorgeous foot.  The long line of her back, exposed for Wisdom’s clever hands.  Her thighs, inching wider and wider, trembling, until Death begs her to let him feast, and they all get to watch her come apart.

There better not be any paps pointing their foot-long lenses at the full length window, War frets as Beauty backs him up against the window, then drops to her knees to worship his cock. One picture, and her career would be dead, he panics even as he palms himself at the vision of Wisdom biting and sucking on Beauty’s luscious dugs.

They lose themselves in a dizzying union of warm, wet caves and rock hard cocks, with questing fingers everywhere.  They suck and lick and rut their way to something that feels better than being reborn, more pure than death, more peaceful than the maelstrom.

They never do make the meeting, and they can’t be bothered going back to that goddamn pool party, so they can’t stop it happening.  A man, only in his middle years but already cadaver faced, introduces himself to a beautiful blonde girl strolling hand-in-hand with a freshfaced young man.  For hours, they talk computers, and engineering, and the marriage of the two, and when they part, it’s with an exchange of business cards.

Upstairs, the woman who will one day be her daughter, cries out her pleasure, begging for the cock of the man who will soon be her father.

And the wheel turns.

*

TRAPPED

Matheson, he thinks.  I am Miles Matheson.

He’s my best friend.  Of course I want to spend time with him.  It’s not what they say it is, that ugly word, that abomination.  How could it be, when I’m in love with my brother’s wife?

Rachel.  So calm and serene.  Somehow free of the churn of filthy emotion that plagues him.  She accepts his adoration with a coy smile, her thighs falling open as if by accident.  As if she hadn’t set that giggling brunette on Bass, and manoeuvred him upstairs, and bitten her lip after their kiss, the most artful thing in the world.

He knows he should push her away, knows he doesn’t really want to be here, but his cock is hard in her hand and there’s something black and ugly whispering in his ear.  _Fuck her.  He’s probably balls deep in that girl.  You don’t care.  Prove it to yourself.  Be a man._

Rachel’s pussy is wet and welcoming, even if her face stays blank.   He closes his eyes, so it doesn’t matter.  Forces himself not to think, just feel.

This is love, surely.  He wouldn’t betray his own blood for anything less than love, would he?

It has to be love, even if he can’t look at Bass the next morning.  Even if he’ll never look Ben in the eye again, and spend the rest of his life wondering about those kids.  Charlie, especially.

She’s his personal catch 22.  She smiles and his whole day gets better, right before it plunges him into the black pit.  Because he loves her, but how? Is it a father’s love?  An uncle’s?  Is he masochist enough to hate himself for a few dirty dreams?

Or maybe he’s just greedy, making love to one woman, telling himself he’s in love with another, dreaming about a third, and never, ever letting himself think too much about the man who made his heart bleed.

*

FIREFLIES

If only Nora was here, he finds himself thinking.  She would known what to do.  She would have been able to get Charlie out of here.

Bass and I, even together, just aren’t enough.  There’s only one thing left to do – and he loves his the girl far too much to be able to do it.

He’s almost come to terms with the fact that it’s not a clean thing, his love. It’s dirty and unhelpful and obscene, but so help him God, he’ll get her out some way.  He’ll save Charlie.

“Bass.  Here’s the plan.”

The fireflies are flickering about their heads as they run towards the control centre, and he has to assume they’ve apprised the Nano of their plan.  (If they’re not the Nano itself – he’s still fuzzy on the details.)  He doesn’t bother to swat them away – let them watch.

Let them burn, he howls as the blast sweeps out across the plain towards Bradbury, not able to distinguish between friend and foe.  Not caring – the stakes are too great.  He offers his hand to Bass – the Scourge, he thinks, sadly, and now he truly is the Butcher.

But Charlie is out there, safe, and he’s gonna believe it’s no fucking coincidence Nora was so patient when she taught him this shit.  He can feel her guiding him, that warm brown gaze rich with understanding.  He needs to be with her, now.

“The red button,” she murmurs.  “Flick it up, set it to self-destruct.  Then no one will ever get in here again.”

And for the first time in his life, Miles does exactly as he’s told.

*

BEGINNINGS

In the beginning, man made them Gods.

In the end, they cast themselves down as demons. 

But as the wheel turns, the sea pitches and churns, and the ouroborous endlessly swallows its own tail, endings becoming beginnings once more.

He’s a stranger, heart light and hopeful, and she has never fought, never lost, never died.  There’s a couple living across the hall, her joyous smile so infectious that when she asks, they find themselves promising to bring wine and dessert.  Dinner is ordinary – her husband teases her constantly about just when she’ll learn to cook – but the company is good, the sparks of attraction easy to ignore in the glow of new friendship.

“So, what do we think of the neighbours,” his sly wife purrs as she warms her feet on his calves after they tumble into bed that night.

“I like ‘em,” he admits, somewhat bemused by the thump, thump, thump of his heart.  “Maybe we should show them how it’s done next weekend.”

“Maybe,” she smiles, then turns into his body and slides her warm, wet mouth across his cheek until she finds his ear.  “But before you invite them back, I have a confession to make.”

He knows her, this woman, and had seen the way her eyes lingered on the knife-sharp planes of the younger woman’s face, and delighted in the muscled curves of the man’s downright sinful ass.  He’d noticed, because his had been doing the same, and thrilling to the possibilities.

His fingers slide between her legs, and delight in the moisture they find there. He spreads it slowly, shallowly, keen to stoke her fire with little more than the eroticism of his words.

“I know, love.  The red lipstick she was wearing – all I could think of was how that would look on my cock.  And how it would taste on his.”

Her shallow gasp leaves him grinning into the dark.

“You want to …”

“I haven’t before, but there’s something about him.  Both of them, really.”

“I wonder if …”

“Yeah.  I wonder.”  Except he didn’t.  Because somehow, deep down, he knew.

They did.  They would.  They will.

 

_fin_

_ _

_coverart and storyboard by Romeokijai_


End file.
